We’ve got to learn to disagree with each other with a lot more grace

Yes, at times we will disagree but it’s sick and dangerous to let those disagreements make us treat the other like enemies who must be smashed, silenced, terrorised. Or even shot.

The attempt to kill Donald Trump is a warning to us, too.

For this country’s sake, we’ve got to learn to disagree with each other with a lot more grace.

Nothing facing us has been more poisonous than this new viciousness in our public debates.

Look around, and try telling me this is normal.

The attempt to kill Donald Trump is a warning to us, too. Picture: Getty

Pro-Palestine activists bullying Jews, invading universities, shouting down a Jewish singer, defacing war memorials, trashing politicians’ offices and even barring the Prime Minister from using his electorate office for months.

Or look at the climate extremists, vandalising offices, invading a top gas executive’s home, shutting down traffic, disrupting speeches.

Or radical Islamists, stabbing and shooting and cooking up terror plots.

Or Antifa and other hard-left thugs, crashing peaceful demonstrations by Christians, attacking meetings by Liberal supporters and assaulting me in the street.

Antifa and hard-left thugs have crashed peaceful demonstrations. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Or even political haters, trotted on for entertainment – like Malcolm Turnbull, happily doing his “Dutton is a thug” routine, or the clown who headbutted Tony Abbott.

It’s mad. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was right in his response to the attempt on Trump’s life: “We must lower the temperature of debate. There is nothing to be served by some of the escalation of rhetoric that we see in some of our political debate.”

He was also right to appeal to “our shared love of our country”.

Most times it’s natural and healthy that we disagree. How do we know we’re thinking straight unless someone challenges us with their own arguments?

Anthony Albanese was right in his response to the attempt on Trump’s life. Picture: Liam Kidston

Yes, at times we will disagree no matter how much we argue, but it’s sick and dangerous to let those disagreements make us treat the other like enemies who must be smashed, silenced, terrorised. Or even shot.

That’s the talent we’ve lost – the ability to agree to disagree.

To disagree and stay civil.

Football fans should be our model.

Collingwood fans may hate Carlton, but all are united by the love of the sport. They can sit next to each other at the game.

But we seem to have lost the greater love that should unite.

The idea of good manners seems a weakness to our clickbait generation, and not a civil virtue.

In the US, Donald Trump has been shot. Must we really wait for something like that here, or worse, to wake up to ourselves?

Originally published as We’ve got to learn to disagree with each other with a lot more grace